


for a guy

by jhoom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Agent!Dean, Celebrity!AU, Chef!Cas, Drug Addiction, Endverse!Cas, M/M, charlie kevin and jimmy make brief appearances, spn prompt challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhoom/pseuds/jhoom
Summary: Castiel’s made a name for himself as a talented chef, in no small part to Dean’s hard work as his agent.  If only Cas’ drug problem wasn’t getting in the way of his work and his relationship with Dean.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is my entry for the december [Supernatural Prompt Challenge](https://jhoomwrites.tumblr.com/post/152738025360/supernaturalpromptchallenge-welcome-to-the) \- the theme was 'employment' and this was my prompt: _‘Can you please act appropriately do you know just how many of your fuck ups I’ve had to cover up last week’ AU (Celebrity/Manager AU)_
> 
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> 
> _this is an example of a story that i had an idea for a beginning and no idea how it would end and kinda just wrote until it seemed done..._
> 
>  
> 
> _come visit me on[tumblr](http://jhoomwrites.tumblr.com) to chat :)_

Dean was absolutely livid.  He’d warned Castiel again and again about this shit, and every time the older man ignored him.  What the hell was the point of even _paying_ him if Cas wasn’t going to listen to him anyway?  

For not the first time, Dean toyed with the idea of quitting.  Cas might pay him well, but not nearly well enough to play babysitter for a grown ass man who can’t get his shit together.  He’s an agent, and yet here he is playing bodyguard and handler and assistant and occasionally drunken best friend.  

(And one memorable night, he’d played the role of fuck buddy.  But that was years ago and they don’t talk about it.)

( ~~Not that Dean’s been able to stop thinking about it, but that’s neither here nor there.~~ )  

The point is, there are dozens of other clients out here, ones who would appreciate Dean’s skills and not take him for granted.  And actually show up at their damn book signings like they’re fucking supposed to and not put Dean on the hook for apologizing and _hopefully_ being able to re-schedule.  

Dean remembers when this job was easy.  When Cas was a friend from college who needed help with his career as a professional chef.  The guy already had a successful restaurant, all Dean had to do was help him find gigs on Food Network and cooking competitions, maybe direct him to the right people for interviews and writing a cookbook.  Hell, it’d been _fun_ at one point because he’d gotten to play taste tester whenever Cas was playing around with new ingredients.

But that was also back when Cas occasionally did pot to relax and help come up with inspiration for his food.  Now Cas is the celebrity chef who dabbles in any drug he happens to come across, no longer using it as fuel for his creativity but as a way to hold back the headaches and shakes symptomatic of withdrawal.  No matter how many times Dean says he has a problem and needs to come clean, Castiel brushes it off with either assurances that it’s no big deal or promises that he’ll try.

Dean is so fucking done.  Because all he ever does is clean up one fuck up after another.  He’s putting out fires all over the place (sometimes literally) and he’s friggin sick of it.  This is it, he realizes.  This is the last straw.  Unless there’s some fucking emergency going on that kept Cas from his book signing,

He uses his keycard to get into the hotel room and takes in the destruction before him.  It does look like a tornado might’ve gone through the space, but Dean knows better.  This is classic Cas on a bender.  Picking his way through the discarded clothes and takeout containers, Dean makes a beeline for the large couch facing the balcony.  

Surprise, surprise, Cas is passed out on the couch.  There’s an empty bottle of pills on the nearby coffee table and a dusting of what Dean used to lie to himself and say was sugar (“He’s a _cook_ , Sammy!  It’s reasonable.”  “Dean…”).

Rage seethes inside him as he stares at the state Cas is in.  His clothes are a mess from sweat and food stains.  He’s been neglecting his beard for at least a few days if not more.  His eyes have dark rings around them.  This is of course ignoring the smell of smoke that’s barely masking the fact that Cas hasn’t seen a shower since the last time Dean saw him.  

 _This_ is what Cas chose to do instead of being at the book signing.   _This_ is what he chooses to do instead of going into rehab like Dean’s asked him to.   _This_ is what he’s doing when Dean offers to spend time with him, distract him from the demons pulling him back down into drugs.   _This_ is what he gets for sticking by Cas for years and _believing_ him when he says things aren’t that bad or are gonna get better.

“Wake up,” he grits out as he kicks the side of the couch.  Castiel groans and rolls over, but otherwise doesn’t react.  “I said _get_   _UP!’_ Dean yells as he grabs the throw pillow out from underneath him and hits him with it.  

“Wha’s goin’ on?”  Cas yawns and sits up, squinting up at Dean.  “Dean?  What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see why your sorry ass wasn’t at the book signing.”

“Book signing?”  

“Yes,” he sighs in exasperation.  “Your new cookbook.  I got you that book signing and the whole Q&A.  They fucking sold _tickets_ man, and you never showed.  I looked like a fucking jackass defending you and trying to smooth things out.”

“Oh, well, sorry,” he says dismissively before yawning loudly.  He gets off the couch with a full body stretch and starts poking around an empty pizza box.  “That’s what you’re here for, though.”  He licks the tips of his fingers and gathers crumbs with them.  “It’s your job, right?”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Dean shouts.  Castiel looks at him with wide eyes and abandons his attempts to scavenge for leftovers.  “My job is to **get** you book signings and interviews and spots in whatever local cooking contests are going on.  It is **not** my job to apologize for you failing to even fucking show your face at these appearances or worse yet show up stoned out of your goddamned mind!  And I’m sick of it man!”

Castiel tilts his head and Dean’s chest gets uncomfortably tight.  It’s a terrible reminder of the adorable goofball Cas used to be in college, getting high and talking for hours of his dreams to set up his own restaurant and share his love of food with the world.  Because with the ugly purple and black shadows around his eyes and the glazed over look to them, it breaks Dean’s fucking heart that this is the same man.  

“I’m sorry Dean.”

“Sorry?  Oh that’s great!  You’re _sorry_!  Just like you were _sorry_ you passed out in your dressing room the last time you were on Iron Chef.  And you were _sorry_ you threw up on stage during that TV spot.  And you’ll be _sorry_ the next time you fuck up.  But hey, guess what, you’ll be saving those apologies for someone else!”

For the first time since he’s woken up, Castiel looks lucid and sober as he stares at Dean.  “What are you saying?”

With his hands on his hips, Dean has to take a moment to steel himself from the scared look starting to grow on his  ~~friend’s~~   _client’s_ face.  “I’m saying I quit.”

Silence hangs heavily in the air between them before Cas chuckles and rubs a hand over his face.  “Oh man, you had me going for a minute there.”  He goes back to picking at crumbs.  “Sorry about the book thing.  I’ll make it up to you.  Hey, you want food?  I’m starved.”

“I’m _serious_ Cas.  I quit.  I’m done.  I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore.”

Cas waves a hand dismissively at him and grabs the hotel phone.  “I’m ordering us room service.  I’m feeling steak and nachos.  And I know that sounds weird but it’ll be good, I promise.”

He gawks at Cas for a minute as he talks to someone over the phone.  Shaking his head with a sigh, Dean walks towards the door.  “When you’re ready to talk seriously about this, let me know.”  

As upset as he’d been when he first came up here, it did nothing to prepare him for how friggin hard it is to walk away from Cas.  But there’s no denying the distance that’s formed between them over the years.  Words aren’t enough to get him to change, so maybe actions will be.

Dean just prays to god he doesn’t read in the morning paper that Cas has OD’d.  Pulling out his phone, he texts Charlie and Jimmy and tells them to keep a close eye on Cas and for the love of god try to get him into the rehab center they talked about.  And oh yeah, he quit and please keep him informed.

The next few weeks are rough.  Castiel calls and texts him repeatedly, at first confused and then getting angrier and angrier until there’s a desperate apology begging him to come back.

 _“Please Dean I’m so sorry.  I’ll stop, I’ll stop all of it.  I won’t even drink just come back.  I won’t miss a single interview.  I won’t be a minute late.  I’ll wear the stupid suit and tie and trenchcoat you picked out for me. **Anything** , name it, just **please** \- I- I can’t do this without you…“_  

On and on until the machine cuts him off.  Dean listens to that voicemail about a dozen times until he finally deletes it and pretends he never heard it at all.  Eventually the messages stop.  For better or worse, they’re no longer in contact.

Cas kind of falls of the grid.  Word is his sous-chef Charlie has taken over full time at the restaurant and he doesn’t make any public appearances.  Jimmy swears up and down that Cas is fine, even if he still refuses to go to rehab, but other than that Dean doesn’t hear much.  

A huge pit forms in his life where Castiel used to be.  Longing grows and grows as the months pass, but Dean carefully locks it away deep inside.  Because he wasn’t lying when he told Cas he couldn’t stand by and watch him kill himself.  But damn if he doesn’t miss the bastard.  Problem is, he doesn’t know if it’s Castiel he misses or the idea of Castiel.  The kid he roomed with all four years in college and maybe had a crush on, the one who grew up into someone unrecognizable and maybe he’s only now starting to realize that other Castiel’s long gone.  

The distance does wonders for Dean.  He takes on new clients.  Even with how busy he is, he still finds he has way more free time to actually take care of himself.  He feels a bit guilty about it sometimes, that he chose himself over Castiel, but he doesn’t think that’s fair.  From the little hints Jimmy gives him, Castiel’s in a lot of ways doing better with Dean out of the picture.  Maybe they were dragging each other down.

About a year goes by he gets words from some colleagues that Castiel’s starting to make the rounds again.  Local interviews for small papers and magazines, nothing huge but it’s the most anyone’s heard of him since… Well, since Dean quit and walked out.  He takes it as a good sign that there’s no talk of any breakdowns.

A couple times he finds himself staring at his phone, his fingers itching to call Cas and check in…  But Cas hasn’t tried to reach him in months.  Dean’s pretty sure that ship has sailed.  What exactly he’s missed the opportunity for, he’s not sure.  Client?  Former roommate?  Best friend?  Potential boyfriend?  Fuck if he knows what they were or could’ve been, and it’s best not to dwell.

Charlie sends him a link to an interview, and he braces himself to read it.  

Dean’s been keeping track (of course he has), but this is a massive article.  There are some stunning HD photos right at the top of the page, and he spends a few minutes perusing them each one by one.  Cas looks good.  Real good.  Not underfed with baggy clothes to hide it.  No sunken eyes with a far-off look in them.  Hair actually combed and only the hints of a five o’clock shadow instead of the neglected wiry beard he’d sported for the better part of a year.

His clothes look good too.  A tee that hugs Cas’ chest with a denim overshirt on top, equally well-fitting jeans hug his hips and remind Dean painfully of a lanky eighteen year old boy who’d shaken his hand and winked suggestively when they first met.  

If the photos piqued his interest, he’s absolutely _blown away_ by the interview itself.  It’s not the usual chit chat and superficial talk about his cooking.  Sure, there’s some of that, but soon it’s taking an unexpected turn into Cas’ battle with drug addiction and his struggles because of it.  The highs and the lows and his long path towards sobriety.  

**_What helped motivate you to try and get clean?  Was it your passion for your craft?_ **

_Although I do love cooking, it wasn’t enough.  My work suffered for sure, but I didn’t care.  It was just another casualty to my addiction._

**_So if it wasn’t cooking, what finally did the trick?_ **

_This is going to sound cheesy as hell, but it was a guy._

**_Cheesy’s can’t be bad if it worked though._ **

_[chuckling] No, I suppose not._

**_So don’t hold out on us - details!_ **

_[Castiel Novak looks uncharacteristically shy - color me intrigued but I wait patiently for him to answer.]  I had someone who stuck with me through a lot, and I think I took it for granted that he’d stay by me even as I continued to lose myself further and further into my bad habits.  But I tested those limits and pushed too far and one day he walked out.  I didn’t believe it at first…  But he was gone._

_It made me take a hard look at what I’d done to drive him away.  And I decided to make changes.  I’ll admit, there was always the hope of him coming back, but in the end I knew I had to do this for myself or it wouldn’t be a permanent change.  So while I’m trying to live in a way that he’ll be proud of, I ultimately am responsible for my own life._

**_This guy must be something special if his leaving was the kick in the butt you needed..._ **

_[Novak blushes and turns away.]  You could say that._

They go on to talk about the recovery process, the support his family and friends (sans one of course) provided him.  Not going to lie, it guts Dean a little to read about how everyone else was there to support him.  He lets himself go numb to it, because his mind keeps going back to the same part.

_This is going to sound cheesy as hell, but it was a guy._

Holy.  

Shit.

He closes the article and immediately cancels all his meetings.  It only takes a half hour to pack up the Impala and then he’s on the road.  There’s too much running through his head, so he plays puts in the first cassette he gets his hands on and drowns out all his thoughts under the familiar tunes.  Because if he thinks then he’ll freak out and if he freaks out he’ll never get himself in the same state as Cas again.

When he arrives in LA, it’s about an hour til Cas’ restaurant opens for dinner.  Dean might break a few traffic laws as he speeds through the city and parks in the first garage he can find.  Even after a year, the older staff recognize him and don’t even bat an eye when he storms in through the back door.  Sure there are a few curious glances, but no one stops him from weaving in and out of the busy lines of cooks prepping ingredients or busboys getting ready to set tables.

The scene that greets him in Cas’ little office is like out of a dream.  Cas bent over his desk with Charlie there, the two of them looking over the menu and arguing about side dishes.  His hair’s a mess from him running his fingers through them all day (a nervous tick Dean almost forgot about until faced with the evidence of it), sticking up at all ends.  Even his chef jacket is in disarray, one button done in the wrong spot and making a mess of the rest of it.

But all in all, this is vintage Cas.  Much healthier than Dean’s seen in so long he’s startled by it.  Sure, he saw him in the article, but that pales in comparison to having the real thing right in front of him.  Vibrant and animated and _lucid_ , more like the man from his memories than Dean’s gotten to see in longer than he cares to put a number on.  

Well, not completely.  Though Cas looks spectacular, there’s a slight tremor in his hands and a thin sheen of sweat collecting on his brow.  Details that Dean mentally notes for later inquiry.  For now, he focuses on taking in the good things and reveling in the fact that they outweigh the bad.

He gets an eyefull for a couple minutes before Cas happens to glance up.  He stops mid-sentence and does a double take.  Charlie follows his gaze and raises her eyebrows in surprise before quietly grabbing the menu and scooching past Dean to get to work in the kitchen.

Once they’re alone, Dean closes the door behind him and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You get clean for me?” he asks without preamble.

Castiel swallows and nods, not meeting his eye.  “I know it’s probably too little too late but… Thank you nonetheless.”  

“Cas?”  

“Hmm?”

“Would you look at me for a minute?”

Shyly, he looks up.  His eyes aren’t at all glassy, so Dean can read them perfectly.  See the nervousness barely under control.  But he’s not ashamed or embarrassed.  He _must’ve_ known that Dean would catch wind of the article, had to expect this.  Dean’s not exactly hiding what he’s rushed all the way to LA for.  

Dean takes a hesitant step forward.  “Cas…  Why would you do all that for me?”

There are a dozen answers that Castiel could give.  Safe answers, one that’ll shift them back to their status quo.   _You’re my best friend.  You’re my agent.  You were right.  I wanted to prove you wrong, that I’m not just a junkie._ Dean wants the real answer, though.  The one hinted at in that article and the one that Cas is doing his best to mask in his otherwise expressive eyes.

There’s no answer as Dean keeps edging closer, crowding Castiel against his desk.  

“I… I…”  Cas stutters, looking up at Dean.  The bastard licks his lips and Dean can’t help but track the movement.  

“Why’d you do it?” Dean whispers as he inclines his head ever so slightly towards Cas.

“Because I’m in love with you,” he whispers back.  “And I want to try and be good enough to deserve you, for once in my life.”

Dean brings his hands up to cradle Cas’ face.  “I think I’ve been in love with you since college.”  He drags a thumb across his cheek and watches the other man close his eyes and shiver.  He keeps the hushed tone, too afraid of breaking the moment.  “Never thought you were interested.”

Cas’ eyes flash open and he glares at Dean.  “We slept together!” he hisses.  

“You were high, I was drunk…  Not exactly the start of a relationship, figured it was just a one night stand between friends.”

“You’re kidding me,” he groans and buries his face in Dean’s chest.  Dean runs his hands through his hair, trying in vain to tame it.  “I thought… but then you never _said_ anything, so I…  We’re idiots, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

Castiel’s head pops back up.  He seems amused, which is probably the only sane way to feel right now.  Not like they can undo the years of pining.  “Dean, can you kiss me?”

Chapped lips meet his, there’s the gentle slide of their tongues meeting, and 10/10 it’s the best kiss of Dean’s life.  They both pull away to draw breath, grins plastered onto their faces.  

“Do we have time for a quickie?  I could blow you or maybe-”

“Whoa whoa, hold your horses.”  With a laugh, he closes his hands over Cas’ to stop him from unbuttoning his pants.  “Plenty of time for that _tonight_.  After work.  As your agent, I can’t advise you to start ditching your responsibilities just because you see an opportunity to get some tail.”

“You quit.”

“Well, I un-quit.”

“Well…  Un-quit after the sex if you’re going to be a pain about it.”

“Cas!”  He can’t stop giggling but he manages to put a firm note in his tone.  “Seriously, man.  As your agent and your boyfriend, I’m begging you to get to work.  I’ll still be here when you’re done.”

He considers for a moment.  “Boyfriend, huh?”

“Yep.  If you’ll have me.”

Cas scoffs and waves the idea away as the most absurd thing he’s ever heard.  “And how am I supposed to cook and manage a kitchen with a boner?”

“You’ll survive.”

“You’re no fun,” he whines but composes himself to leave his office.  Dean stops him, taking the time to properly do up his jacket and straighten out the shoulders.  “Thank you, Dean.”

“Any time, sunshine.”  As Cas walks by, Dean gives him a quick slap on the ass.

“Ask Kevin to get you something to eat while you’re here.  And I expect you to be at my place when I get back.”

“Oh don’t worry, sweetheart.  I’ll be there.”  


End file.
